The ego has retreated to more basic demands: the claims of “I” and “mine.” Here, to make progress, we become eager for opportunities to go against self-will, especially in personal relationships. There is no other way to gain detachment from the self-centered conditioning that burdens every human being. The Buddha calls this “swimming against the current”: the concerted, deliberate effort to dissolve self-interest in the desire to serve a larger whole, when eons of conditioning have programmed us to serve ourselves first.
